I had a busy day of touristing yesterday and was too tired to process any images so had to make up for lost time this morning. My first stop enroute from Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara was the Santa Inez mission in Solvang. There I found the kind of detail I love in the old missions. Solvang itself is fascinating with a Scandinavian theme but I decided to save that for another day.
I arrived in Santa Barbara too early to check into my hotel so I just kept following the signs to the mission there and soon found myself in the right place. Santa Barbara is said to be the most 
beautiful of the missions and you can see that this may be true.
I’ve included a closeup of the detail of the architecture to show how intricate it is. They say the padres had only one book on architecture and it featured 
Roman columns and such. I don’t know if this is true but it does make some sense as this does not look very Spanish.
While looking for the mission I kept seeing signs to the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens and I still had time to kill so I headed up the hill for my next stop. I was pleased to see a few flowers blooming but overall I have to say I don’t think it was worth the $10.00 price of admission this time of year. Still, how often do you see California poppies blooming in February?
Today’s adventures will take me to the Santa Barbara County Courthouse, said to be the most beautiful public building in the U.S. Then I will traverse State Street, the main drag of Santa Barbara and after some down time at the motel I will check out the Funk Zone. Should be another great day for photography!